Crop Insurance Today Fourth Quarter 2019 - 1

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Sharing is Caring-

Lessons from a Day's Fishing
(And Don't Forget Rule #2!)
Tom Zacharias, NCIS President

I fortuitously picked up the
fly box with the floating
foam beetles rather than
my usual "go to" Opening
Day box of flies. Rule #2 at
NCIS is just that, "Better
Lucky Than Good." Unlike
fishing, in crop insurance
we cannot rely on good
fortune to save the day.

Introduction
A Fishing Story

Opening Day of catch and release trout season in Missouri has been a tradition for my oldest
brother and me for many years now. I am about
a 25+ handicapper with a fly rod and can often
be confused for Chevy Chase falling in the water
and losing my equipment...but I digress. Opening Day is typically on or around Veteran's Day
weekend. So, before proceeding any further, let us
take the opportunity to express our appreciation
to the men and women of our Armed Services
who sacrifice so much for the liberty we enjoy as
citizens of this great country. The sacrifices of our
Veterans provide us the opportunity to share a
day of fishing with our families.
This past Opening Day I was a little late getting down to "ye ol" trout stream and my brother
was already geared up, waders on, attempting to
acquire a "piscatorial beauty." As I approached my
brother, he was just finishing up a conversation
with a fellow angler who we will refer to as Burt
for purposes of this story. Burt walked away and I
said hello to my brother who immediately asked
me, "do you have any of those black rubber/plastic beetles on you? Burt has been catching fish all
morning and I asked him was he was using." The
answer, of course, was obviously those black rubber/plastic beetle "thingies."
I did not think I was in possession of any such

beetles but proceeded to reach into the pockets
of my fishing vest and, lo and behold, the fly box
I opened had an array of said black beetles (We'll
come back to this point later). I loaned one to my
brother and then tied one off myself. From about
10:30 am to noon, I caught fish left and right,
never changing flies, just "stayin' with the stuff."
The black beetle "thingies" float so one can
watch the fish take the fly and the fun begins, and
if I don't have too many Chevy Chase moments,
the fish is successfully netted and subsequently
released to fight another day.
Over lunch, my brother and I reflected on our
productive morning, which, no doubt, was the
result of Burt's willingness to share information.
Now to "set the hook" on the rest of our story...
It seems more than cliché to say we live in an
Information Age, but we do. For NCIS, information sharing is core to our mission and our role
in the industry. Let's take three primary NCIS
functions: actuarial services; loss adjustment research; as well as training and education and see
what insights we might glean from fishing.

Actuarial Services
We're all in the risk pool-
Sharing Information

As a licensed advisory organization and statistical agent for state-regulated crop insurance,
Continued on page 31

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Crop Insurance Today Fourth Quarter 2019

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